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Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present the second Western Exhibitions Drawing Biennial, a celebration of the medium of drawing in many expanded mutations. Contributions by gallery and affiliated artists confirm the gallery’s commitment to drawing and works on paper and the varied approaches on view — from schematic to free-form, in-your-face to speculative, abstract to figurative — will capture the current state of contemporary drawing practices while placing a focus on gallery artists’ core concerns of personal narratives and cosmologies, identity and gender, sexuality, pattern and exuberance, all with a keen attention to materiality.
The inaugural WXDB, in 2021, presented multiple works from each artist. This iteration is different: participating artists will present just one or two pieces – some created specifically for this show, others pulled deep from within the artist’s archive – to concentrate the viewer’s focus and reward careful looking. By continuing the idea of a Drawing Biennial, Western Exhibitions stakes a claim that drawings are to be lauded as much as painting, sculpture, and any other medium, as the gallery reveres the handmade, the tactility, the immediacy of drawing. From the essay by Shannon R. Stratton, commissioned by the gallery for the 2021 show: “Drawing is space to make visible the contents that make us, to make material, and then examine, those qualities that are much more complex than the linguistic code applied to them.”
Critic Erin Toale reviewed the inaugural Western Exhibitions Drawing Biennial in New City, expertly capturing the gallery’s devotion to the practice of drawing:
Drawing. A medium that is foundational, yet often relegated to the planning stages: just a sketch, rarely the main event or finished product, something unearthed after the death of an artist or architect to demonstrate their rendering accuracy. This biennial, however, is not drawing as a first draft, a prompt, or the beginning of something. This is the gallery declaring its commitment to drawing in a public ceremony. This is the evolving mission and history of the space as told through multiple panoramic storyboards, each artist with a vignette contributing to the overall narrative.
The 2023 Western Exhibitions Drawing Biennial will open the 2023 art season with a reception, free and open to the public, at our Chicago location on Friday, January 6, from 5 to 8 pm and will run through February 25. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am-6pm and by appointment.
💻 Send us an email, here.
📲 Call us during business hours, Tu-Sa, 11am-6pm: (312) 480-8390.
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For more images and information please visit the exhibition page on our website here.
Also stay tuned for a new In Depth with... page for this show, featuring insight and background information from participating artists about their work in the show.
Participating artists:
(bios and more information here)
Dan Attoe
Marshall Brown
Elijah Burgher
Jessica Campbell
Lilli Carré
Ryan Travis Christian
Journie Cirdain
Courttney Cooper
Jenny Crowe
Edie Fake
Julia Schmitt Healy
Andrew Hostick
Richard Hull
Dutes Miller
Aya Nakamura
Rachel Niffenegger
Robyn O’Neil
Michael Pellew
Stan Shellabarger
Geoffrey Todd Smith
Deb Sokolow
Ruby T
Frances Waite
Erin Washington
Cathrine Whited
Lauren Wy
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